I agreed.
We were halfway through our meal when Elijah came into the restaurant with business clients. He stilled when he saw me sitting there with Justin. Dread filtered through my body and the food I was chewing turned to powder in my mouth.
But he didn’t own me. I just worked for him. He’d kissed me few times, but we hadn’t slept together and he treated me like a dog at the office. I hadn’t promised him anything. I could date who I wanted.
With that mentality, I sat up straighter and flashed Justin the best smile I had. He grinned back at me.
I was having a good time with him. A great time. I felt good around him. Around Elijah I always felt like I had to impress him, or like I had something to prove. He had the huge company, all the money, and the respect – or fear – of everyone we met. It wasn’t the kind of relationship I would be comfortable with.
Elijah and his party walked past our table and I deliberately didn’t look at him. They were taken through to a private room. Out of sight, out of mind, I decided.
We were done and heading out when I noticed Elijah was standing outside the door alone. He moved his weight from one leg to the other and back, rocked on his heels, checked his watch. I recognized it. It was expectation.
When we stepped out of the restaurant, he stepped in front of us.
“Hello, Grace,” he said to me. “Who’s your friend?”
“Justin,” Justin said, speaking for himself. He didn’t hold out his hand. It was a bit of a slap in the face to Elijah, but if Justin had held it out, I didn’t think Elijah would have accepted. They disliked each other immediately.
“What are you doing with him?” he asked me.
I frowned. “Does it matter?”
Elijah looked to his side at something in the distance.
“I was just wondering how you were planning on explaining this to me on Monday when you came back to the office.”
I shook my head, glancing at Justin. I’d expected him to look upset about the fact that Elijah made it sound like he had some claim on me. But his face was expressionless. In fact, he looked bored.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you. Who I see outside of work hours has nothing to do with you or the company.”
I’d said it nicely, but Elijah still looked angry. He balled his hands into fists before he stuffed them into his pockets. Like that would make any kind of difference.
“I don’t think this is appropriate,” he said. I wasn’t sure what he meant with ‘this’ but it didn’t matter. I wanted to say so, but Justin jumped in.
“Look here, the lady doesn’t want to be bothered. She made it clear how she feels. If you’ll excuse us…” he started walking past Elijah, but Elijah grabbed his sleeve and spun him around.
“Who do you think you are?” Elijah said and his face was a shade redder than before. The thick vein in his neck stood out and I could almost see his pulse.
“Elijah, don’t,” I said. Justin looked down to where Elijah was still holding his sleeve.
“Let go,” Justin said.
“Don’t you take that tone with me,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”
“Elijah Wilson,” Justin said. His blue eyes were bright, rimmed with something darker, something dangerous.
“You don’t forget that. Grace works for me. I’m not just going to disappear.”
Justin shrugged.
“Elijah, please,” I said. He looked at me and his eyes softened. He let go of the Justin’s sleeve and took a step back.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” he said to me. When he looked at Justin, his eyes went cold again. “You guys enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”
I blew out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding when he walked back into the restaurant.
“I didn’t realize you know him,” I said.
“I don’t, but there’s only one Elijah in town, and I’m guessing that was him. He’s about as scary as the rumors say he is.”
“He’s not bad,” I said, defending him.
“I don’t think this is appropriate,” Justin mimicked Elijah’s words in a mocking tone. “Please, he thinks because he has money he can get whatever he wants. You work for him so he thinks he can just have you.”
I swallowed. I wasn’t going to tell Justin that in a way Elijah did have me. He was kind and sweet. This aggressive side only came out at the office. And today, apparently, which was very uncharacteristic. But I knew that he had a good side too.
***
I was upset that Shonda had found some excuse to ditch me and leave me alone with Elijah. I knew she’d planned it that way. She was dead sure that my uncertainty about him was just because I couldn’t remember what I’d decided.
As lunch progressed I was starting to think she was right. Elijah was the very definition of charm and grace. I remembered so much of him where he lost his temper or where he was verbally aggressive, but that was usually in the workplace. I had to keep reminding myself that the Elijah I knew at work wasn’t the same Elijah I knew at his home.
My home. I had to keep remembering that.
He helped me where I needed it, like he knew that I needed something even without me asking. And he was nice to me. Really nice. I felt flustered in the café. It felt like something really bad had happened and I couldn’t remember.
But he was soft and gentle and reassuring. When I put my head on his shoulder he didn’t try and put his arm around my shoulders, or kiss me, or anything that would make me feel uncomfortable. It was like he understood.
He just put his hand on my thigh and left it there, and picked up the square menu that lay on the table.
“I can’t believe the coffee prices have gone up that much in the past year,” he said, glancing at the top price. I smiled, because this was Elijah. This was what he always did.
“Will you tell me what I missed?” I asked. He looked at me and his eyes were unsure.
“In the past six months?” he asked. I nodded.
“I just feel like I’ve lost so much more than six months. Like something huge has happened that I just didn’t know about. But there was no election, nothing huge with the business, and all of my family is still alive and well. I checked.”
I felt like an idiot, but I kept talking. “It can’t be anything like that. So it has to be something else.”
“I don’t know, honey,” he said. “There are so many things that happen in a day, it’s hard to isolate the big things. I can tell you what’s going on in the sports world, and in the business world, but you don’t really want to know either of those now, do you?”
I chuckled. “No, I guess not.”
I hesitated. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I’d lost, and that frustrated me. And I was scared to ask, because my decision during the time that I couldn’t remember had been quite drastic, and the opposite of what I’d been thinking to choose.
I mean, I’d left Justin. And I was scared to ask.
“Can I ask you something personal?” I asked.
Elijah nodded and the look on his face made me laugh.
“I don’t mean personal like that,” I said. “This isn’t high school or anything.” He laughed too, and it was a deep sound. Deep and full. A happy sound. A sound that I remembered made me happy.
“What is it?” he finally asked, his eyes still laughing with me.
I looked down at the napkin I was twirling through my fingers.
“What happened? With us? I know that I chose you. Everyone’s been telling me that. And I have no idea how that happened.”
I looked up at Elijah. The humor had drained out of his eyes until a hard look stayed behind. There was a tightness around his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before too. I wondered, was that because of the accident? Or did the extra stress happen during the six months I’d lost?
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about it,” he finally said.
I nodded. “That’s what Justin said too,” I said, and then I realized I’d said just a little bit too much. It was more instinct than a fact in my mind. I looked up at Elijah, and there was heat in his eyes now. Something that I recognized straight away as rage even though I couldn’t think where I’d seen it before.
“And when did he say this to you?” Elijah asked and his voice was soft. Soft and restrained, like he was holding back. I swallowed. There was no point in lying about it now. I wanted to, but he knew who’d come to see me in the hospital and who hadn’t. He had enough tabs on the last few days so that I wouldn’t be able to get away with it.
So I told him the truth.
“Justin came to visit me in the hotel room. He wanted to check up on me.”
That was truth enough. I didn’t have to tell him the rest. I didn’t have to tell him that I’d ached for him, that I’d needed him to take me in his arms. That I wanted him to whisk me away to a life where everything was stable and it was just me and him.
And he definitely didn’t need to know that he’d kissed me. And that I’d wanted more. So much more.